San Francisco – Colin Kaepernick is on his way back to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. And he’s freakin’ booking it.

The breakout star of these NFL playoffs looked like he got shot out of a cannon Saturday as he ran for 181 yards and two touchdowns – the most rushing yards by any quarterback in NFL history, regular season or postseason. He also threw for 263 yards and two touchdowns to lead the San Francisco 49ers to an emphatic 45-31 victory over the Green Bay Packers.

Kaepernick made 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh look like a genius Saturday. He made the Packers' defense look foolish. And he made Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers look like a dinosaur. (Throwing the ball? That’s so 2012).

And now, Kaepernick has absolutely made the 49ers look like the team to beat in Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans next month.

They already had one of the NFL’s best defenses, offensive lines and run games for several years. Now they’ve officially proven that they have a bona-fide weapon at quarterback, too.

“Our offense is light years ahead of last year,” said 49ers center Jonathan Goodwin, who obviously appreciates the importance of good quarterback play better than most – having earned a Super Bowl ring with Drew Brees and the Saints. “We were a good offense last year, but now I think we’re capable of big plays, and that’s giving the defense a lot more to think about.”

San Francisco linebacker Patrick Willis has the same appreciation for what he’s seeing from his sideline vantage point. Willis has been one of the league’s most dominant defensive players for six years.

But now he’s got his best chance to reach his first Super Bowl because of the electrifying second-year pro from Nevada, who is torching NFL defenses the same way he used to torch them with both his dynamic speed and his dynamic arm when he ran the pistol offense in college.

“You never really see him open up like that in practice. So to see him do it in the game, that amazes me. It wows me. And I’m just saying, ‘Wow, did he just do that?’” Willis said. “To see a quarterback run that way, like he runs, that’s unbelievable.”

The 49ers went into Saturday’s game-planning to have Kaepernick run the ball a lot. And they dialed up several read-option plays – including his 56-yard touchdown run in the third quarter that broke a 24-24 tie.

But Kaepernick was just as deadly when he improvised. His first touchdown run – a 20-yarder in the first quarter that tied the score 7-7 – came when he recognized that receiver Michael Crabtree was being double-teamed and he had an open rushing lane.

"He was running all over the field. He's big, strong, athletic, throws the ball well and runs the ball extremely well," the Packers' Rodgers said, complimenting his counterpart. "We didn't really have a whole lot of answers for him."

When the Packers weren’t double-teaming Crabtree on Saturday, Kaepernick made them pay that way, too. He completed nine passes for 119 yards and both TDs to the 49ers’ other rising offensive star.

And, oh by the way, 49ers running back Frank Gore ran for 119 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries as well.

This once-vanilla offense has suddenly reinvented itself as rocky road.

“They had a lot coming at them,” Goodwin said of the Packers. “To have to deal with Colin being able to throw like that and keep the ball and hand it off and read, that’s a lot for them to deal with. And he did a great job.”

The most impressive thing Kaepernick did Saturday was bounce back from a wretched start.

Less than two minutes into the game, he made an awful decision and an awful throw that led to a pick-six for Packers cornerback Sam Shields. After Crabtree slipped and fell on his route, Kaepernick turned to the other side of the field and tried to force the ball into tight end Vernon Davis but Shields was all over it.

Disaster? Proof that Harbaugh made the wrong decision two months earlier to switch from the safe, steady Smith to the unknown quantity Kaepernick?

Hardly.

Kaepernick came right back and led the 49ers on a touchdown drive – the exact same thing he did after all three of his regular-season interceptions. He also immediately responded with scoring drives in the regular season after a lost fumble and a safety.

“He does a great job of responding,” Harbaugh said. “He has done that all year after every safety or turnover. And that’s a rare quality for a quarterback to be able to do that.”

To a man, all of Kaepernick’s teammates said the same thing and insisted that they never doubted he would respond again after Saturday’s poor start.

Kaepernick quickly earned that trust when he won his first two games after Smith suffered a midseason concussion this season – his first at home against the Chicago Bears in Week 11, his second against the Saints.

By that point, Harbaugh’s choice was essentially made for him. But no one ever admitted that it was easy to turn away from Smith, who had his own long-awaited breakout performance with a 36-32 victory over the Saints in this same divisional round of the playoffs last year.

Goodwin admitted that he wondered how the decision would turn out, as everyone else in the 49ers' locker room did.

“Naturally, you know, the guy doesn’t have a lot of experience. But the one thing I’ve said from Day 1 about Colin since he started playing, he’s always been confident,” Goodwin said. “And when you see a guy that’s playing quarterback in this league, that young, and he’s that confident, then it doesn’t bother you.

“So hats off to him. He’s gotten better and better each week, and hopefully he can get better for two more weeks.”

You’ll notice that these quotes about Kaepernick’s star qualities are all coming from teammates and coaches – not the quarterback himself.

That’s because as dynamic as Kaepernick is on the field, he’s the exact opposite off the field. He’s a man of few words, humble and soft-spoken. And he took every opportunity to credit his teammates for all of Saturday’s successes.

“It’s a lot easier on me when other players are making plays. Our offensive line came out, they dominated up front,” said Kaepernick, who admitted that when he found out he had broken the QB rushing record he though it was “a great accolade” -- for the team.

“Our offensive line did an amazing job, our receivers, tight ends and running backs did amazing jobs. They opened up a lot of lanes for me,” Kaepernick said again.

And those aren’t just empty words. With the 49ers, it truly is a full-team effort that makes them so dangerous.